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The Ex
Chana yawns and stretches. She's been away from her latest war for... oh... two weeks now? She's feeling very lazy, and tired of being cooped up in a fighter cockpit. Besides. R2-D36D tells her the fighter's motivator is reaching end-of-life and will need replacing soon. So her she is, on a galactic isolationist, junk collecting, ship building space station (or so the catalog said) in search of a new one. Or a good used one. She looks around, and pauses as she sees Zeak, looking at him long enough to take off the eye shield she wears most of the time. Something about his face...is familiar. Zeak for his part doesn't notice as he sits on the 'porch' of the Caspar Caff branch with pair of women, a Twi'lek and a Sarian cyborg. The women seem to be reading, or at least interacting with pads. Zeak is staring off into the distance, his cybernetic eyes seemingly unfocused as he ponders something. Chana looks Zeak over. Now there's a man who looks...connected. To what, is debatable, but connected is what she needs right now. She's on a space station she knows practically nothing about, and she really //would// like to get back to the PoP before Johanna decides she's dead or worse, that she needs killing. It's been... a while. She straightens her jacket, remembering the words of her old master... 'When approaching the powerful, be polite.' Good plan. She moves closer to Zeak, standing a respectful distance from him, and waits for him to notice, if he's going to. Not to interrupt. Zeak puts down his cup, picks up a small e-smoking device from the table, and draws a long drag. After holding it in his lungs he exhales, producing a long stream of water vapor laced with a mix of Andris spice and glitterstim. It is then that he brings his eyes back into focus and notices Chana. She too looks familiar, but as he's never given much consideration to Johanna's people . . . he raises a brow quixotically, perhaps as an opening? Chana nods. "Excuse me. You seem like you're well connected around here. Do you know where a girl could find parts for a Z95A Headhunter II?" She looks over the exposed contours of the man's facial bones, and suddenly remembers where she's seen them before. She stiffens, ever so slightly, and if one watches microexpressions, that was a very faint frown. Joh's son must be of age by now. Chana misses her adoptive family. Chana 's accent is Correlian, but well traveled. "An interesting choice in craft," Oppenhiemer replies, musing as he picks up the e-smoking device and takes a small puff. Normally Zeak is approached because people want something from him, not for what are essentially directions. "There are a few parts dealers that can be found in the bazaar-- depending on what you are looking for they might have it. If you are particular however, the most reliable place would likely be those crazy Jawas on Theseus in the Etti system. You could be looking for an obscure part from freighter model that went out of production before the clone wars, and they will find it, likely spliced into a swoop right next to a part from an AT-AT." Zeak takes a hit on the waterpipe! Chana smiles, and it warms her face up quite a lot. The man //understands// about the old things. "Thanks. That sounds like the right place, although if they've got a motivator that's been used for swoop racing, I'm pretty sure I don't want it. You make me wish I had an N1 after all, if there are parts that old still kicking around." She pauses. "I'm Chana. Chanera Thorn." She offers a hand to shake. Oppenhiemer doesn't take her hand, but nods, kicking the feet of the chair across the table from him to force it to slide out. "Well met Ms. Thorn -- sit down, have a stim caff, and tell me about your Z-95. Are you dragging it about looking for parts, or are you like that whiny overgrown teenager, Skywalker, flying for days in cramped misery?" The women look up and begin to pay attention, perhaps this will be interesting. Chana raises an eyebrow. She takes a seat, and orders that stim-caff. "Skywalker... now that's a name you don't hear much anymore. I remember a time when you couldn't get away from him in the holo-news." She laughs softly. "They called him the hero without fear. Are you saying he's still around? He'd be a senior citizen by now. And I'm flying it around like a whiny teenager." "Seriously," Oppenhiemer replies after a short puff. "You are young yet but your joints will take it out on your in your old age -- what is your attachment to the Z-95? Are you some sort of merc who occasionally shoots torpedoes at poor unsuspecting merchants like me?" Another puff, and a smirk, "You don't work for that freak Vane do you?" Chana laughs again. "I learned to fly a Z95 //during// the clone wars, when they were still new. My current boss had the uprated version so until I get around to certifying on something more recent, I've stuck with the Z95. But yeah, even I'm starting to feel it when I spend too much cockpit time. Which basically describes my last couple of years. And no, I don't know any Vane. I work for Johanna te Danaan. Zeak pauses. Two unexpected avenues. The female Twi'lek cyborg jumps in on his behalf, "never mind Zeaky," she says to Chana, her accent thick, "that's probably one of the fighters Johanna took from him in the divorce -- and he's trying to decide if he should make a snide remark, offer to buy his old toy from you for far too much money, or follow up on how you are old enough to have been in the clone wars sweetie -- too many tidbits in too short of a time." Chana cocks an eyebrow again, getting a little more closed. She shifts her caff to her left hand. "Well. There //are// answers to those questions. Yes, probably; feel free; it's not for sale, and that's a long story." She looks back towards Zeak. "Your son looks just like you. I knew I'd seen your face before. "I vote for the story," the female Sarian cyborg replies as he moved closer to Zeak and snuggles up against him. "stories are always more fun." Zeak is about to speak when the Twi'lek interjects as she also moves closer to Zeak, snuggling in. She reaches for the e-smoking device which Zeak relinquishes, "yes we vote story -- that's 5 to 1, as Cia and I get to vote for two each." She takes a long drag as he settles into Zeak's shoulder before passing the device to the Sarian. Chana sips her caf-stim and leans back. She takes a slow breath, chuckles, and shakes her head. "You're all wired head-to-head. That's gotta be a time saver... Well... back in those days, I was a fighter pilot. I fought with a number of different Republic units, some clone, some not. If you were willing to fight the Separatists and the combat droids, they'd find a place for you //somewhere//." All true, somewhat misleading, but Chana still has issues with outright //lying//. It goes against her grain. "I was on a ship with my boss at that time, headed for Corruscant. Had to do an escape-pod bailout in hyperspace, and found out I was 40-some years out from the nearest planet. I can't talk about why I couldn't call for help. It's probably still classified, but anyway. Back in those days, they put carbon-freeze units in escape pods for just that kind of problem. So I hooked the hoses up to my flight suit, and chilled. Forty some years later, I woke up on Tatooine, and it's been root, hog, or die ever since." She tells the story fairly casually now, up until about now. "Everyone I knew is gone," Chana continues,"so far as I know. The government I fought for is gone... flying and fighting are pretty much all I have left." Well, she does leave out one other F, but she figures Zeak probably knows the turn of phrase. Polite company. "I worked on the Angry Rancor for a while, then fixing blasters on Nar Shadda, and then Joh scraped me up off the pavement and offered me a pilot's job at an appropriate price. Other than a slight detour on the way back to her ship, that's where I've been since." "Which units?" Oppenhiemer replies. "My dad flew transport for the 42nd, second brigade." The unit designation of course identifies his father as one of the over a million Fett clones, although the unit's record was unspectacular -- service in middle of nowhere, with details lost to time. "I remember going to some of the reunions and meet ups in the early days of the Empire. Who knows, perhaps you knew an uncle of mine?" Chana raises one rather orange eyebrow. "If you're saying your father was a clone, I knew hundreds of your uncles." She rattles off a few unit names. Like yours, no-one particularly famous. "I was with the 88th a lot. My boss had a strong relationship with their general." True enough. Master Torr //was// their general. She's shaving close to the truth, as she must. Chana forces herself to relax, muscles disappearing the soft that wraps them. The talk of war, of old time...in light of the comparative skirmishes she's been involved with since...it's the life she knew, and for all the horrors of it, she still misses it. "So you were you some sort of irregular, or a young, bright eyed career officer before the sleep?" Oppenhiemer asks. The e-smoking device passes between them, from one to the next, each taking a puff before passing it on. Chana chuckles. "We were irregulars, to be sure. I was an apprentice pilot, but war is how apprentice pilots get good in a hurry. And there was always work." "The good ol days, back when Jedi weren't drugged out womanizers, when they were disciplined ascetics," Oppenhiemer replies with a bit of disinterest, contrasting the words with a puff of the spice mixture; he is consuming quite a bit. "Sometime you should come back -- convince my ex that you should fly the kids over for their next visit. I have some things in my collection you might get a kick out of." Zeak then nods to an older man walking by. "You should go ask Paleon if he has your part - if not, he has the skills to fabricate one, if you have time." Chana shrugs. "I met a few Jedi. They were a mixed bag." She says it with absolute sincerity. She finishes her caff and sets down the mug, looks toward the man Zeak gestures toward. "Perfect, thanks very much." She pauses. "Assuming Joh is still on speaking terms with me when next we meet, I'll ask her. I've been gone a while." She gets up. "If you'll excuse me, I have a motivator to buy."